Online advertisements generate the revenue supporting many content publishers. Rich media advertising, advertising beyond static text advertisements, represents a key and growing segment in the online advertising market. Industry analysts estimate that spending on rich media advertising in the United States will increase 400% to $5.1 billion USD in 2013, while spending on traditional non-rich static text ads will decrease by 22% in the same period. Similarly, analysts estimate that by 2012 more than half of European advertisement spending will purchase rich media advertisements, while traditional non-rich static text ads will decrease to just 15% of advertising spending.
The expandable advertisement, an advertisement that possesses the ability to expand and collapse its viewable area as triggered by predefined events, has emerged as a popular form of rich media advertising. Current implementations of expandable advertisements expose the content publishers' computer systems to security risks and may not be scalable. Implementation techniques commonly include utilizing “frame buster” javascript files to allow cross domain communication between a parent page and an IFRAME page of different domains.